Category Archives: Sucks like a vacuum

“The time has come,” the Walrus said

By nopasanada | Published: August 2, 2009

“To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.” ~William James

I’ve been fired once before. From an assitive living community where Pat Riley’s mother once resided. Though to be honest I had a thing for the Knicks. And this was long before they were so awful that people bet 2:1 on their loss. I even had one of this giant puffy Starter jackets that precluded me from entering a doorframe anyway except for sideways but it still made me feel all bad ass. Me and my clarinet.

But my firing. I was 16 I would imagine. And the firing was done by some cross-eyed woman named Mary with white hair and glasses so thick that when she removed them I was shocked by the size of her eyeballs. They were so, so…tiny. And she fired me over the phone for leaving early one day. I didn’t check off my closing side-work and so I was let go.

I spent the next week sobbing into my toast thinking that I would never ever have another job again. For if I couldn’t make it in the food service industry picking up applesauce droplets from already stained tablecloths then I would and could be nothing in this world. I would be the least successful person ever and have to reside in my mother’s basement on an uncomfortable futon. No school would ever take me. And I’d end up on the street. The end.

Of course none of that happened I ended up getting into a perfectly acceptable university and graduating and everything! I even got a job! Three jobs! And here I sit in a comfortable Queen sized bed able to tell the tale.

My second firing happened today. Today I got fired from a part-time writing gig but still FIRED. Even saying it sounds wrong. The way it rolls off of my tongue and the harshness of the ‘f’ sound at the start of the word. Nothing about ‘fired’ sounds gentle though I suppose that it’s supposed to conjure up imagery of anything but gentle. Hearing the words come out from 1,000 miles away was like being shoved into an outdoor pool in the middle of December. It’s that initial shock of the chill that gets you at your core. Tears spring to your eyes as you tread back to the ladder. Those few feet feel like forever as you try to gasp for air but it’s only a few feet as you reach out and grasp onto the ladder.

Once out the initial shock dissipates but the stunned and the hurt feelings linger. It doesn’t mean the end of anything or the beginning of something. At least not at first. It’s just anger. It’s name calling and irrational tears even when you know that it was coming.

The time had come. I knew so. They knew so. I yelled and waited for it and practically taunted and begged for it to happen and it did. I can force blame and say the who, where, what and how and if you don’t like me tell me. I can say all of that bullshit to make myself feel better but what’s the use. It’s done. And to be honest there’s only so much one can write about being a 20-something on the path to acceptance of life and career. Hell, this would make an excellent post that shit happens and how to manage the shit of life with everything else. But they don’t teach, Man The Fuck up 101.

So, I’ve been fired. I’m not sure what I have to offer. But what’s that thing about the door closing and windows opening but probably not wide enough lest some recently fired individual jump out. But I still feel like something good is in the air.

At least that’s what I’ll tell myself every time I repeat the words; ‘you’re fired’.

Also posted in The year on the edge | 19 Comments

Too much at once

By nopasanada | Published: June 13, 2009

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.”b ~Natalie Goldberg

On Tuesday I had planned to attend a reception in DC where I had invited several VIPS that braved golf ball sized hail to attend this reception. Of course I wasn’t there because my flight had been diverted to to Long Island. As in I flew from Albany to Long Island. And then to DC.

On Wednesday someone hacked into my site.

On Thursday while at Proof, I noticed that someone had hacked into my Twitter account.

On Saturday I was headed to Boston for the pre-BlogHer meetup and my car died exactly five miles from home.

Can you see where this all is headed? Can you feel the stress level rising? Can you hear me saying, “There isn’t enough klonopin in the world to cover this shit”? Can you hear me opening a bottle of wine and laying in the middle of my mother’s living room and drinking it straight from the bottle while my mother gives me The Look of Dismay? Can you hear me screaming FUCKING COCK SUCKING MOTHERFUCKING SHIT? Because that’s what’s going on right now.

If you were following me on Twitter here is the new URL: http://twitter.com/TheHeatherB

According to my hosting company and the wonderful and amazing Sean Slinsky, Google should be caught up by next week and hopefully I’ll have my life back. There was a long post coming about how painful it was not to have my site. My baby. And that I missed Twitter. And then every time I went to hit Twitterfon I realized that I never have or had anything to say. So really, all you’ve missed out on is my grand announcement that it is colder in Albany than it is in DC and I still miss Tim Russert. You’re welcome.

Also posted in Blogology | 6 Comments

This won’t make any sense. Then again, it’s not supposed to.

By nopasanada | Published: April 13, 2009

“Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.” ~Antoine Rivarol

Oklahoma is my adopted home away from home. After I moved back to Albany and the joy of having the prodigal daughter’s return had worn off, my parents went back to saying things like, “Well, if you want food, you know where the kitchen is.” So later that year I found that Oklahoma City was like being at home. I had my friends and my faux-family to go to whenever I needed respite from the very hard life I was leading of cross-country hotel hopping.

In September I went for Susan’s book signing and while she and Wade went out with the boys I asked if I could have Shana over to play. That was the day that I went to Sonic twice, drank GSM like it was my job and we discussed baby names for Shana’s impending arrival. That was also the night that Susan and I stayed up until 2AM discussing Didacticism and the following morning I went home with the feeling that I used to to get when leaving Albany: That one always needs to have that bit of respite with their family just for hugs and some love.

I’m pausing right now because my train of thought is gone. Those words that usually come out so naturally have slammed into a brickwall because when the unfathomable happens. You want to speak but can’t. Everything comes out of your brain at once as it tries to comprehend everything. Instead of compartmentalizing death and parenting in such a way that never the two shall meet, my brain is currently in FAIL mode because the two should not meet and yet here we are again.

Shana’s baby boy Thalon; the same baby boy I held in January while his older sister kept petting his head saying, “He’s so cute!”. The same baby boy whose head I sniffed and whose face I stared just a few short months ago is now gone.

There is so much more I want to say right now. All of the things that I can suddenly say on the phone but to write anything right now would be trite. I will leave you with this though: Last week my mother and I got into a HUGE fight. One of those fights where I was hurt and angry because of something she had done and then she spent days worrying so much and out of anger I told her to leave me alone. I yelled. I swore and I avoided her. Meanwhile she worried and I thought well, I’m an adult and she needs to stay out of it. Here’s another lesson learned: Once you become a parent that doesn’t stop. That worry and that cliched bit about having your heart walking around outside of your body never fucking ends. Your children become your world and for every sting they have you feel it times ten.

After the last two weeks I keep shaking my head because babies should never die. It’s not right and it’s the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. And yet it keeps happening and all I want to do is sit here in my pajama pants and wonder why?

None of the above makes any sense. And I don’t even care. I’m just torn up on the inside and questioning how parents do it. How do you spend the rest of your life constantly worrying that in any minute your heart might break into a million pieces?

None of the above makes sense because it shouldn’t. It – the death of a child – shouldn’t happen but it does.

****

Sarah put up a paypal account for Shana and her family. So head over there if you can.

Also posted in The year on the edge | 11 Comments

Lacking grace

By nopasanada | Published: January 23, 2009

“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.” ~Golda Meir

January has been a bitch. Correction, I have been January’s bitch and feel free to insert any insinuation of bending over and grabbing one’s ankles. That’s how January has been to me and I don’t think that January knows the meaning of the word ‘gentle’. Or ‘lubrication’ for that matter.

In the middle of putting on my earrings this morning my mother called and then texted. With one earring in and only one sock in sight, she informed me that my grandmother – her mother – is dying. “She’s taken a turn for the worse”, were the exact words. Phrasing like that makes me think that we’re trapped in Ma and Pa Ingalls kitchen while Mary battles scarlet fever. But there I was half dressed and discombobulated when my lip started to tremble and again…the tears.

Though at least it was something tangible as opposed to the tears of yore that were due to a dip in the bipolar spectrum. This time there was something I could put my finger on; the possible death of a grandparent which inevitably tosses me in the murky water of contemplating mortality. That of my parents and then of my mother’s sister. My mother’s sister who was reading “Peaceful Dying” on Christmas Eve. When I brought the choice of literature up to my mother she answered matter of factly, “Well she’s dying, Heather.”

She’s a stoic one, my mother. While I have to allow every feeling in, circulate, process and then dispel in a very elaborate way she seems to just take things as they are. These things happen she says and she tells me that I should feel lucky to have had grandparents for as long as I did. It’s just words and doesn’t mask that feeling of heartbreak which thrusts every memory so that it presses against my forehead. It gives me a headache to know that she is hurting; her sister is dying, her mother is dying and she still needs to take care of me.

A little over a month ago my older brothers’ mother died. It was unfathomable that their mother died and yet they were ok. Able to walk and talk and function. When I called our father he said that very soon we would go over what to do in the event of his death. And it made me angry – this all makes me so angry – how matter of fact both of my parents can be. It makes me feel like maybe I’m not theirs because of how deeply I feel. But even more, I’m just livid that it happens; that our parents will leave and no one tells you that the mere thought will make your heart tighten and ache and the pain will radiate to every limb but all you can do is cry.

Also posted in Familia, La Madre, The year on the edge | 26 Comments

Good morning, sunshine

By nopasanada | Published: September 16, 2008

“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” ~Walt Disney

Being over the age of 18 should come with a disclaimer: “WARNING: This shit might get expensive” or “WARNING: May feel like having something rammed up your ass every third day” or “WARNING: May feel tingly sensation, nausea and vertigo when you look at your credit card balance” or “WARNING: Dumb ass PAY YOUR FUCKING PARKING TICKETS”

Also posted in Lessons Learned, Oh The Stupidity You'll See | 26 Comments